Saturday, April 18, 2009

While Obamma can be lauded for his release of the Bush Torture Memos, his refusal to bring charges against those involved and his proclamation of protection for them are abhorrent!

In fact, it appears it is even illegal:

The United Nation’s top torture investigator has suggested it is illegal under International law for President Barack Obama to announce that the United States government has no intention of prosecuting low-level CIA officers who carried out torture sanctioned by the Bush Administration........................................................

“Like all other contracting states to the UN convention against torture, the US has committed to conduct criminal investigations of torture and to bring all persons to court against whom there is sound evidence,” Manfred Nowak, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture, told Austrian weekly paper Der Standard.

“They are party to the convention and the convention is very, very clear,” Nowak told the paper. “The fact that you carried out an order doesn’t relieve you of your responsibility.”

Friday, April 17, 2009

Johnathan Turley in response to a question by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow gives us an insight as to why this prosecution is so desperately needed and hints at the reason Obama is avoiding it:

... what is really disturbing is that … he’s equating the enforcement of federal laws, that he took an oath to enforce … with an act of retribution in some sort of hissy fit or blame game.”

“It’s not retribution to enforce criminal laws,” insisted Turley. “What it is is obstruction to prevent that enforcement — and that is exactly what he’s done thus far. He’s trying to lay the groundwork to look principled when he’s doing an utterly unprincipled thing.”

“There aren’t any ‘convenient’ or inconvenient times to investigate war crimes,” Turley emphasized. “You don’t have a choice. … You have an obligation to do it.”

Turley believes that Obama is backing off from any investigation of war crimes “because an investigation will go directly to the doorstep of President Bush … and there’s not going to be a lot of defenses that could be raised for ordering a torture program.”

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Former Defense Department Undersecretary Douglas Feith and former Bush administration officials Andrew Card, Michael Chertoff, and Ari Fleischer recounted their experiences in the events surrounding September 11, 2001. Ann Compton, who moderated, was the only broadcast reporter allowed to remain on Air Force One during the September 11 attacks. The panelists also discussed the administration's use of constitutional powers, and they responded to audience members' questions.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

He's shirking his responsibilities to his friends and compatriots and fellow master spies on the intertubes. It's just egregious. So if you want a little excitement, just click the recent image of Agent 99 above, and you will find a veritable university course in what's wrong in the world and in America right this very now all on one page.

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.—Albert Einstein